


Friend Like Me

by imaginary_golux



Series: Fractured Fairy Tales [13]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Aladdin (1992) Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fluff, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-26 09:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10784382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: Rey is a scavenger, collecting scrap metal for a living. Finn is the newly-crowned king, desperate to know more about his people - and to escape a loveless arranged marriage. They both know there's no way to change their fates.And then Rey finds a lamp...Beta by my ever-marvelous Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.





	1. Chapter 1

Rey is looking down from her favorite perch, high above the marketplace, watching the people come and go and waiting for an opportunity to slide down and snitch an apple, or maybe a loaf of bread. She hasn’t eaten in a day or two - that’s nothing new, she knows how to deal with it. She has almost enough scrap metal stored up to earn her an entire portion of bantha jerky from that absolute _ass_ Unkar Plutt, anyway.

So she’s watching when a young man comes wandering down the street, staring wide-eyed at everything, like he’s never been in a marketplace before. He’s wearing an all-encompassing tan cloak with a deep hood, so that only his dark hands are exposed - though there are hints of golden bangles around his wrists. He’s moving so oddly that he draws the eye - moving like a tourist, Rey finally decides, like the strangers who frequent the much larger main marketplace down by the gates, the ones who look at everything like they think it’s new and exciting, and gabble to each other in foreign tongues about who knows what. But what is a tourist doing in _this_ part of town? He’s going to lose his purse, and possibly his life.

The tourist stops at Plutt’s stall, looking at the beautiful apples mounded up along its front - the rotten ones are hidden underneath, Rey knows from painful experience - and then at the two very small children huddled beside the stall, staring up at its bounty with wide eyes. Rey’s seen them before. They’re the reason she didn’t have any food _yesterday_ \- she couldn’t bear to eat the bread she’d stolen with their hungry gazes on her, and gave it to them without much more than a moment of sighing hesitation. They’re indentured to Plutt, she knows, but he is of the firm opinion that those that do not work, do not eat, and the children have yet to find a territory which hasn’t yet been claimed.

The tourist looks from Plutt’s stall, to the children, back and forth a few times, and then takes an apple off the heap and hands it to the children. Rey’s jaw drops. Even a _tourist_ should know better.

And then the tourist has the temerity to look _startled_ when Plutt bellows in rage and comes around the stall, moving far faster than his bulk suggests he should be able to, to seize the tourist’s wrist. “Do you know what the penalty for _stealing_ is, thief?” he booms, and Rey puts a hand briefly to her own forehead in exasperation, and goes swinging down from her perch, pulling one of her few, precious coppers out of her belt.

“Here,” she snaps, flipping it to Plutt, who snatches it out of the air with astonishing accuracy, and tugs the tourist away into the crowd and down a nearby alley. He follows her with surprising docility, for which she is _immensely_ grateful.

She rounds on the tourist as soon as they’re safe, furious with him and herself in equal measure. “Are you _daft_?” she snarls up into the face half-hidden by the voluminous hood. Enormous dark eyes blink back at her in startlement. “I don’t know how people do it where _you’re_ from, but around here we _pay_ for things,” she adds.

“I’m very sorry,” the tourist says. He has, Rey notes absently, a lovely voice to go with his lovely eyes. “I did not mean to cause trouble. It is only that the children looked so hungry.”

“Yeah, they’re hungry,” Rey says, sighing. “No work, no food, that’s the way of the world.” She’s furious all over again when the tourist has the temerity to look _surprised_ by this. Where the _fuck_ is he from? “Come on, you’ll just get into trouble down here. Where are you supposed to be?”

“...The palace,” the tourist admits, and Rey covers her face with a hand.

“Seriously?” she says, exasperated beyond all measure. “Look, if you want to come see the city while you’re visiting, _ask_ for an escort. Or do you really want to get stabbed in an alley for that lovely gold jewelry you’re wearing?”

The tourist pulls his sleeves down over the bangles on his wrists, looking sheepish, as best as Rey can interpret the expression beneath that concealing hood. “Are _you_ planning to stab me?” he asks, glancing around the alley. Rey is almost proud. It’s the first sensible thing he’s said.

“No,” she replies. “I only kill people who damn well have it coming, and stupidity isn’t actually a crime. Now come on, I’m getting you back where you _belong_.” The tourist falls in behind her as she leads the way down the alley, keeping up with her surprisingly well.

“You’ve killed people?” he asks, sounding more curious than judgemental, which is the only reason Rey actually answers.

“Not many,” she says curtly. “And usually because they were trying to kill me. Though I got that absolute _asshole_ who was trying to steal children for his brothel, too.”

“Ah,” says the tourist, and then, a moment later, “Good.”

Rey grunts, proud and satisfied, and jogs onward. She knows these alleys like the back of her hand - has used them, far too many times, to escape the guard or other scavengers who think she’s easy prey or asshole merchants who think that because she sells goods she’ll also sell _herself_ \- Rey has nothing against the women who choose that route, but it’s not one she cares to take, mostly because she knows full well she’d snap the neck of the first man who tried to do something she didn’t like. _Not_ a good instinct for someone who needs to keep customers _happy_.

And then she rounds a corner and stops dead, because the whole main thoroughfare is absolutely _covered_ in royal guards. They’re stopping all the traffic, banging on every doorway, grabbing passers-by and shouting at them. Rey flinches back into the cover of the alleymouth and _stares_. What the fuck is going on?

“Oh...drat,” the tourist says softly, pausing at her shoulder and staring past her at the chaos. “Hux noticed I was gone.”

“This is for _you_?” Rey asks, boggling at him.

“Yeah,” he says, and puts his hood back. Rey stares at the face revealed. It’s one she’s seen before, because even as poor as she is, she’s seen newly-minted coins now and then. Coins with the young king’s profile on them, as clear as it is in front of her right now.

“You’re the _king_ ,” she says hoarsely.

“Yeah,” he says, with a lopsided smile that makes his beautiful face even lovelier. “I am. Thanks for looking after me.” He slips one of the gold bangles off his wrist and holds it out to her. “You paid for my apple,” he says, shrugging, when she gapes. “It’s the least I can do.”

Rey’s not an idiot. She takes the bangle. “...Your majesty,” she says at last, not sure what else to say, definitely sure she should be bowing or curtseying or something, she’s not sure what.

“People who save my life get to call me Finn,” the king says softly.

“I’m Rey,” Rey says, because that’s what you _do_ when someone introduces himself.

“I’m very glad to meet you, Rey,” the king says, and catches her hand, and lifts it to his lips, kissing her bruised knuckles like she’s some sort of court lady. And then, as she’s still gaping in astonishment, he steps past her out onto the street.

Immediately, he is swarmed by half a dozen of the royal guards, all demanding to know where he has been and if he is well and what the _fuck_ he was thinking, going off into the city like that. Rey fades back and away into the alley, shoves the bangle into her beltpouch and runs like hell before the king can mention her to the guards. She does _not_ want to attract attention. Any attention at all.

*

She’s wandering the alleys three days later, hunting for scrap - Plutt _did_ let her trade her most recent sack of scrap metal for food, despite the unpleasantness with the king - with _Finn_ , he said to call him Finn, and knowing that she can call the king himself by his given name is a strange warmth in Rey’s chest even now - mostly because she’s one of the best scavengers in the city, and Plutt knows it. So she’s had food the last few days, and has enough for another couple, even without pawning the bangle, which she is strangely reluctant to do. She _could_ sell it for enough money to keep her fed for - a year, perhaps more, it _is_ solid gold - but Finn gave it to her. That gives it value beyond its simple price.

She pokes her head out cautiously onto one of the larger thoroughfares, and then stops dead, staring. There, standing in front of one of the better food stalls, is the unmistakable cloaked form of _Finn_. What the _hell_ is he doing down in the city again? Didn’t he learn his lesson _last_ time?

But he pays for his food with coppers, and the stallkeeper nods amiably to him as he turns away. Well, clearly Finn learned _something_ , then, even if it wasn’t to _stay the fuck out of the lower city_. Rey slides around the corner, keeping a careful eye on Finn - she doesn’t _want_ to feel responsible for him, but she sort of does anyway. The nomads of the desert claim that if you save someone’s life, you’re responsible for them forever. Maybe that’s it.

She’s honestly not expecting him to turn and _spot_ her, nor to nod and move towards her briskly through the crowds, as though they had arranged to meet. Rey stands her ground, not sure what else to do, until he reaches her and holds out one of the bread rolls. It’s one of the _good_ ones, hot and fresh and filled with meat, the sort Rey can afford maybe once a month at best, and she takes it from him with shaking hands, biting a tiny bit off the end and savoring the taste of fresh bread and juicy meat.

“D’you have somewhere we could go to eat these?” Finn asks, and Rey is so discombobulated that she nods and leads him down a nearby alleyway and through a tangled, twisted path to the smallest and least comfortable of her hideaways. It has a very good view over the city, despite its cramped size, and Rey settles down in the window and nibbles at her bread roll, making it last. Finn sits down across from her and pushes his hood back, staring out over the city and taking absent-minded bites of his roll every so often.

“I don’t get to see it from this angle very often,” he observes after a while. “The city, I mean. It’s just as beautiful as it is from the palace, though.”

Rey finishes her bread roll and licks her fingers. “It’s lovely from up here,” she agrees. “You can’t see all the mess.”

Finn chuckles softly, though she wasn’t trying to make a joke. “You can’t see it from the palace, either,” he admits. “I was...very surprised, last time.”

“Why the hell did you come _back_?” Rey demands. “It’s dangerous down here.”

“I know,” Finn says, shrugging. “I was looking for you, actually. And I remembered to bring money, and to pay for what I bought - and I only brought coppers, so no one would see me with gold.” He pushes his sleeves up to reveal that he is not wearing any golden bangles on his wrists.

“Good,” Rey says, nodding. It’s more than she would have _expected_ him to think of, honestly, given how ill-prepared he was for his first expedition. “And are your guards going to ransack the city for you again?”

“No,” Finn says, smiling. “I just have to be back by sunset, is all. They’ll never notice I was gone.”

“ _Why?_ ” Rey asks again. She’s not interesting enough to bring a _king_ down out of his palace, surely - that’s just flattery.

Finn smiles at her. The full force of that smile is _devastating_. Rey tries hard not to be swayed by it. “I wanted to learn more about my people,” he admits softly. “I never see anyone - anyone _real_ in the palace. It’s all courtiers and foreign princesses and guards. The servants won’t talk to me - they’re all too scared. But down here, people talk to me like I’m - like I’m a _person_ , not just the king. Even yell at me when I’m being an idiot.” He slants a grin at her that is _far_ too charming for Rey’s peace of mind.

“...I probably shouldn’t do that,” she says, realizing only now exactly how much trouble she could have been in - could _still_ be in - for mouthing off to the king himself.

“No, no, please do!” Finn says, grinning more broadly. “It’s - no one ever _tells_ me when I mess up. It’s really useful, actually, to hear what I’m doing wrong.”

“But if I point out that coming down here _alone_ is going to get you killed, you’re not going to listen, are you,” Rey sighs.

“No,” Finn says, shrugging. “But - if I knew where to meet you, I wouldn’t be alone, would I now?”

Rey gapes at him. Finn gives her a lopsided smile. “I’d - I could pay,” he adds. “I know you must do something that I’d be distracting you from -”

“I collect scrap,” Rey says bluntly. “Sometimes I fix things, if the person can’t afford a real craftsman. I’m not - I don’t know what you think I am, but I’m not. I’m nobody.”

“You’re the woman who saved my life,” Finn says. “And - look, there are a dozen foreign princesses up in the palace, and I’m supposed to marry one in the next four months. Not _one_ of them has said more to me than ‘yes, Majesty,’ or ‘no, Majesty,’ and _believe_ me, I have tried to get them to talk. As far as I can tell, not one of them has a brain in her head. Not their fault; I know proper princesses aren’t _supposed_ to be anything but brainless beauties, and since Vizier Hux chose them, I’m sure he chose the most proper ones he could find. But I had far rather spend my hours listening to you tell me what a fool I am, than listening to them say nothing at all which could possibly offend me.”

“Oh,” Rey says, thoughtfully. And then she shifts over a little, so they are sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, and begins pointing out the landmarks of the city the way _she_ knows them: where the best scrap heaps are, and the food stalls with the keepers who will look the other way if you only take the broken pieces, and the alleys which are best for escaping the guards. Finn presses his shoulder against hers and listens intently, asking questions now and again. It’s...strangely comfortable, actually.

And when sundown is near, Rey leads her strange guest down through the alleys to the very gates of the palace - the back gates, that the servants use - and he smiles at her from beneath his hood and presses something into her hand. She doesn’t look down until he’s safely through the gate.

It’s a little sack of coppers, enough to feed her for a week. Rey tries to stifle the little smile that wants to creep onto her lips. She wouldn’t have accepted silver or gold - that’d just end with her _dead_ , most likely - but coppers, those she’ll take, and gladly.

She uses some of them to buy a bag of jerked meat for the children who wait so hopelessly beside Plutt’s stall, because - because they look sad, and Rey still has too soft a heart.

*

Finn comes back again three days later, but this time Rey is ready for him, is waiting near the servants’ gate (there are good pickings there, if she’s quick and clever enough to stay out of sight of the guards). He smiles when he sees her, comes striding towards her happily, and Rey tries hard not to smile back - she shouldn’t be _encouraging_ this lunacy - but she still can’t help herself.

“Where to today?” he asks quietly, and Rey sighs and brings him through the back streets to the vast sprawling expanse of the main bazaar.

“Keep close,” she tells him, and Finn reaches out and takes her hand. Rey goes still for a moment in shock, then glances down at his gentle, smooth fingers clasped so carefully around her scarred and callused ones, and shrugs a little, and leads him into the crowd.

Finn is fascinated by _everything_ , from the leatherworkers to the food stalls to the jewelers with their well-guarded displays to the merchants from far-off lands with their stalls full of strange and mysterious objects.

He buys a little bag of candied ginger from one of those merchants, and Rey sighs at the realization that Finn doesn’t know how to haggle - why would a king have such a skill, anyway? But the candied ginger bursts sweet and spicy on Rey’s tongue, and she can’t help smiling at Finn. She’s never had anything like it before.

“Let _me_ haggle for anything else,” she tells him, and Finn nods cheerfully and lets her negotiate for the skewers of roasted lamb and vegetables that end up being their lunch. They stand side-by-side with their backs to a sunwarmed brick wall and watch the crowd go by as they gnaw the vegetables off the skewers. Finn asks questions between each bite, about what people are wearing and about the haggling and about the goods on display, and Rey does her very best to answer, though half the time she has to shrug and admit that she has no idea.

It’s a strange day, but a good one, and Rey brings Finn back to the palace with her stomach full of good hot food and a little bag of candied ginger in her pocket, and watches him set his shoulders and go striding back into his cage with a little pang of sorrow.

*

The next time Finn manages to escape the palace, he looks - weary beyond words. “Could we just - go somewhere quiet?” he asks her, and Rey nods and takes him to her favorite hideaway, the one so high in an abandoned tower that it seems sometimes she could reach out and touch the stars. Finn sags back against a fallen stone and looks up at the clouds as they drift across the endless blue sky. Rey sits down tentatively next to him and offers him one of the last of her candied ginger pieces. Finn takes it with a lopsided smile, and they sit there in silence for a while, watching the clouds. They’re above most of the noise of the city, and most of the smells, too; it seems almost as though they are in their own tiny sanctuary, where nothing can intrude.

“Hux says I have to choose a bride,” Finn says finally, sounding quiet and defeated in a way that makes Rey want to _hurt_ something - preferably Grand Vizier Hux. “He says, if I don’t choose by a month before my birthday, _he’ll_ choose. And I know whichever one he _does_ choose will be - horrible.”

“Can’t you just choose a different one?” Rey asks.

“I don’t know which one it will _be_ ,” Finn says miserably. “And - gods, this sounds horrible - I can barely tell all of them apart, sometimes. They all _dress_ alike, and they’ve all got their hair in these elaborate updos so I can barely tell what color it is, and they never say anything but ‘yes, Majesty’ and ‘no, Majesty.’ One of them has freckles, though they’re not as nice as yours.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “I don’t - I don’t like _any_ of them, but Hux says there’s no time to ask any others to come, that every other eligible princess is too far away. So -” he sighs. “I guess I’m stuck. Maybe I’ll roll a die.”

“What’s the worst that can happen?” Rey asks practically.

“Well, the worst that can happen is that whoever I choose is in league with Hux, gets pregnant, poisons me as soon as the baby is born, and Hux gets to be Regent for my heir,” Finn says, shrugging. Rey gulps.

“That’s...a worse worst than I was imagining,” she admits.

“Yes, well,” Finn says. “I’d get rid of him if I could, but - he’s very good at his job, and he knows where _all_ the bodies are buried. If I dismissed him, I’d probably have a civil war on my hands in _weeks_. Assuming he didn’t just try to assassinate me on the spot. I suspect his dog would like nothing better than to eat me.”

“Oh,” Rey says. “I - I wish I could help.”

“You are helping,” Finn assures her. “This - these days with you - I think I might have gone quite mad already without them.”

Rey smiles. “Good,” she says. “I’m glad - I’m glad I help, a little.” She pauses, then adds, “Your people do love you, you know, my king. Your reforms - we can tell you’re _trying_. The nobles are blocking you, and we know that, and we hate them, but you - you’re trying to help, and we can _tell_ , you know. So. Don’t - don’t despair?”

Finn reaches out to touch her hand gently. “Thank you,” he says. “That _does_ help. And hey - maybe I’ll get lucky and some completely unexpected princess will show up in the next two months, and I’ll fall madly in love with her on the spot.”

“I hope that _does_ happen,” Rey says firmly. “And then she can help you get rid of Hux and his nasty dog, and you’ll live happily ever after, just like in one of the tales.”

“From your lips to the gods’ ears,” Finn sighs, and they sit there in silence, watching the clouds, until Finn really does have to leave.

*

Finn doesn’t come back the next day. He doesn’t come back in the next _week_. He doesn’t even come back in the next _month_ , and Rey stops lurking in the alleys near the servants’ gate and returns to her old haunts, strangely despondent. It’s only a little while longer until Finn will have to choose a bride, and there’s no sign of any new princesses showing up to capture Finn’s heart and - maybe - save his life.

She’s lurking in one of the better alleys, a month before Finn’s deadline, thinking dark thoughts and watching the passers-by intently in case they drop anything valuable. There’s a pack of street kids playing some sort of game with something that shines, kicking it down the alley and trying to steal it from each other. One of them kicks it just a little too hard, and it flies out of their scrum to hit the alley wall beside Rey. Rey snatches it up and goes for the roof before the boys can really figure out what’s happened; they shout a little and then wander off to look for something else to bother, and Rey hunkers down out of sight and looks at her prize.

It’s an incredibly battered metal lamp, in the old style, the ones you fill with oil and then light the wick coming out the spout. It’s covered in dirt and alley filth, of course, so Rey takes a corner of her tunic and starts rubbing at it, wanting to see if it can be easily cleaned.

It shakes in her hands, and she drops it in surprise, and watches in blank astonishment as smoke pours from the lamp’s spout to resolve into a man about as tall as Finn, with dark eyes painted with kohl and dark hair in loose, soft-looking curls and golden skin, wearing loose orange pants and brass cuffs around his wrists the same color as the lamp and _absolutely nothing else_.

They blink at each other for a while. And then the man - the _genie,_ he must be - bows deeply to Rey and says, “I am the slave of the lamp. You have summoned me. What is your will, my mistress?”

Rey leans down and picks the lamp up, turning it over in her hands carefully. “There are slaves in the marketplace, sometimes,” she says at last, to the battered metal in her hands. “I have never been able to do anything for them.” She looks up and meets the genie’s eyes. “I get three wishes, right?”

“Yes,” the genie agrees, nodding solemnly. “With - a few caveats, I’m afraid. I can’t make anyone fall in love, and I can’t bring anyone back from the dead.”

“That’s alright,” Rey says, smiling a little. “Genie, I wish you free.”

*

There is a brief pause, in which it almost feels like the entire world is holding its breath, and then the cuffs on the genie’s wrists _shatter_ into a million tiny pieces - Rey’s scavenger instincts mourn the loss of that much brass - and the genie himself breaks into a broad, wondering, absolutely incredulous smile. He stretches out his newly-bared arms as if to admire them, and then, to Rey’s astonishment, grabs her by the hands - the lamp falls clattering to the rooftop - and whirls her about gleefully, so fast that her feet actually lift off the roof and she squeaks in dismay. The genie puts her down gently, looking faintly apologetic.

“ _Thank_ you,” he says. “I have - I never even _dreamed_ \- you are a _marvel_. What’s your name? And what’s your heart’s desire?”

Rey boggles. “I’m Rey,” she says at last. “And why do you want to know my heart’s desire?”

The genie bows deeply, one hand over his heart. “I am Poe, radiant Rey. And I wish to know your heart’s desire that I might grant it to you, since you have given me mine.”

Rey takes a deep breath. “You said you couldn’t bring people back from the dead,” she says quietly, “so you can’t give me my heart’s desire.” Poe’s face falls, and Rey hurries on. “But - you could do something else for me, if you wanted. Well, not really for me. For my best friend. Finn. Um. The king.”

Poe gives her a curious look. Rey shrugs, and does her best to sum up the whole situation as quickly as possible. “So he has to pick a princess to marry,” she finishes, “and all his options are either horrid or worse than horrid. So - could you find him a better princess?”

“Hmm,” says Poe thoughtfully. “I could, probably, do that for you. But - hmm. You could never be sure she was not going to be horrid - unless -” he grins suddenly, broad and bright as the sun. “I have it!” He claps his hands sharply, and there’s a very odd moment where Rey thinks the world may have turned briefly upside down, and then she finds herself swathed in -

“What _is_ this?” she demands, looking down at the extravagant dress which has appeared on her body. “My gods, how does anyone move in these things?”

“...Yeah, no, that doesn’t work at all, does it,” Poe says, shaking his head, and claps his hands again. Rey braces herself through another swooping bout of magic, and this time she comes out of it wearing -

“Oh,” she says, admiring the beautiful chased-brass bracers on her forearms, the decorated leather armor on her torso. “I like _this_.”

“Here,” Poe says, and hands her a sword, long and light and perfectly balanced for her hand. There’s a sheath for it on her belt, and Rey slides it carefully home and admires the sandals laced halfway up her calves, the worked leather skirt around her hips, the slender worked metal circlet resting gently on her brow.

“You’ve made me a princess?” she asks, a little dubiously.

“A _warrior_ princess,” Poe confirms, and snaps his fingers. His orange pants turn into a leather skirt much like the one she is wearing, and he acquires a leather sword-harness across his chest and sandals like hers, too. “The rest of your warriors are waiting at the main gate,” he informs her with a bright grin. “Shall we go and make an entrance, your highness?”

Rey takes a deep breath. “You mean for me to marry Finn.”

“Can you think of anyone better?” Poe asks gently.

Rey thinks about it for a long moment, and then shakes her head decisively. “No,” she says, “I can’t. Let’s do this thing.”


	2. Chapter 2

There are, in fact, the better part of half a hundred warriors waiting for Rey at the front gate to the city. They all salute as she appears, clenched fists clapped to armored chests, and when Rey returns the salute, they cheer. Their voices ring from the stone of the walls, and the people of the city turn to look and then to _stare_ , wide-eyed, as Rey lifts her head and puts her shoulders back and follows Poe back into the city, fifty leather-clad warriors stamping behind her in perfect time and chanting a marching song that echoes down the streets like thunder.

By the time they reach the palace, the gates have been flung wide, and there are flustered servants rolling a beautiful carpet down the steps. Most of Rey’s warriors stop at the bottom of the flight of stairs, but ten of them follow her and Poe up through the enormous inlaid doors and down the cavernous hall to the throne room. The marble walls reverberate to the sound of their stamping feet.

Poe bows deeply before the throne and cries, “O king, live forever! I bring you the pride of Alderaan, the warrior without peer, the daughter of our beloved queen and the heart of our people: Her Most Glorious Highness, the radiant one, the princess Rey!”

Rey steps forward and looks up to meet Finn’s eyes. He looks - he looks _stunned_.

“We are honored to welcome Her Highness to our court,” he says at last, softly.

“Her Highness has heard,” Poe says, beaming, “that your most imperial majesty is in search of a bride, and has come, through many trials, to make her claim. What challenges have been set, o king, that my princess may defeat to win your hand?”

Rey doesn’t gulp, because that would, she is sure, be unbecoming of a princess. But - challenges? No one said anything about _challenges_.

Finn’s eyes light up, and a slow smile curves his lips, growing wider by the moment, until he is grinning so widely it looks like it almost hurts.

“Indeed,” he says, “the challenges have not yet been announced. We will be pleased to offer Her Highness and her warriors housing in our palace, and in three days’ time we will announce the challenges that all who wish to vie for our hand must complete.”

“O king, your wisdom surpasses Solomon’s,” Poe says. “Her Highness accepts your hospitality most eagerly, and awaits the challenges with bated breath.”

Finn nods, and gestures something that Rey realizes must be dismissal, because Poe bows again and begins backing out of the throne room. Rey gives Finn a much shallower bow than Poe did, fist clasped to her chest in imitation of her warriors’ salute, and follows Poe out into the corridor, where a _very_ flustered-looking servant intercepts them and leads them through a veritable maze of hallways to a vast suite of rooms.

*

The door clicks shut behind the last of Rey’s warriors, and Rey swings around to glare at Poe. “ _Challenges_?” she asks.

Poe shrugs, grinning. “You mentioned he was having a hard time choosing among the princesses,” he says. “This way, he can design challenges that will be easy for _you_ , and hard for _them_ \- but when you win, it doesn’t look like he’s made an arbitrary choice. It’ll make it harder for this Hux fellow to argue with his decision.”

“Oh,” Rey says, the anger running out of her like water from a cracked bowl. “That...makes good sense, actually.” She shakes herself a little and turns to the warriors, who are watching the byplay with little smiles on their faces. “Are you - are you human?” she asks the leader of the squad, a short woman with pale skin and dark hair and a crooked smile.

“No, actually,” the woman says, holding out a hand. Rey takes it, clasping the woman’s wrist as the woman clasps hers. “My name’s Jess, by the way, since I’d wager this barbarian didn’t bother to introduce us. We’re djinni, old friends of Poe’s from before he managed to do something stupid and get himself bottled. He asked for a favor, and we were all glad to chip in.”

“You’re _all_ djinni?” Rey asks, flabbergasted at the thought of _fifty djinni_ following her around.

“No, no,” Jess says, grinning wider. “Just us ten. The other forty are homunculi - they’ll play dice and drink beer and boast a lot, and they _can_ fight, but they’re not people.”

“I see,” Rey says, and then has to sit down. The couch she chooses is softer than anything she’s ever sat on before, and she sinks into it rather disconcertingly. “It’s - um - it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“I assure you, it’s our honor,” Jess says. “You’re the first mortal _any_ of us have heard of who freed a djinn right off, without even using up two wishes first.” Her smile is wide and friendly. “So. I’m Jess, and these are Temmin and Iolo and Muran and Kare and Nien and Tabala and Kaydel and Korr and Brance.”

The other djinni clap their fists to their chests and bow, grinning widely. Rey smiles back.

“It’s good to meet _all_ of you,” she says, quite honestly. “Now - do any of you know anything about actually being a princess? Because Poe may have given me the army and the costume, but...I’m a scavenger. I don’t know _anything_ about how princesses behave.”

“Well,” Poe says, lounging back against the wall and grinning, “that’s the beauty of it, you know. You’re a _warrior_ princess. Alderaan is real, by the way - it’s quite far away, and its warriors do dress like this, and it does have a queen - a friend of mine, many years ago, as it happens.” He waves a hand as though to brush away the topic. “But back to my point - you’re a warrior princess. You’re not expected to be dainty and elegant, though we can certainly teach you _how_ to be those things. You _are_ expected to be fierce and dangerous.”

Rey grins. “Well,” she says thoughtfully, “I think I can do that.” She looks down at the long, slim sword at her side, angled awkwardly along the cushions. “But I think someone had better teach me how to use this.”

“I will,” Jess says immediately. “Poe would just confuse you.”

Poe smiles sheepishly. “Yeah,” he admits. “Probably.”

Rey stands and nods to Jess. “Now?” she asks.

“Now,” Jess agrees. “We’ll start with footwork.”

*

Poe _does_ take a few hours that afternoon to walk Rey through formal dining manners, which are simply not things that come up while living on the streets, and Rey does her best to memorize them, so when she is summoned to dinner with the king and his court, she’s mildly terrified but not _utterly_ discombobulated.

She’s seated at a table with the other twelve princesses, all of whom are wearing clothing so elaborate it must take _hours_ to arrange it properly, all of whom look down their aristocratic noses at her and sniff. Rey gives them her best bland look, the one that she uses to conceal anything from joy to blinding rage, and then ignores them.

Finn is seated by himself at the high table, with half a dozen servants hovering around to make sure his goblet is never empty and his plate is always heaped with delicacies. He doesn’t look _nearly_ as comfortable up there as he did in Rey’s hideaway, eating candied ginger and watching the clouds blow by. Rey assumes the princesses are at a different table mostly so Finn can’t appear to favor one or another of them, by seating her beside him or speaking to her longer than to the others. Sensible of him.

There’s a man at the next highest table who can only be Grand Vizier Hux. Rey’s never met him before, but for Finn’s sake she hates him on sight. He looks very prim and proper, with his red hair trimmed sternly short and his eyes always scanning the room around him, and at the side of his chair sits an enormous black dog with a collar as thick as Rey’s wrist. There’s no one sitting on the other side of the dog, the chair conspicuously empty, possibly because it snarls viciously every time one of the servants ventures close enough to refill its master’s goblet or offer him a new dish.

Rey fixes them in her mind. Here are her enemies, the Grand Vizier and his dog. She will not be caught unawares.

The food set before her is all stuff that Poe taught her how to eat politely - Rey can’t help wondering if the djinn didn’t pop down to look at the kitchens, which would have been sensible - and if her appetite is heartier than that of the other twelve princesses, at least she doesn’t spill anything or make any particularly egregious errors, so all they can do is glare. Finn was right, Rey thinks, meeting them stare for stare without flinching. They all _do_ look alike, perfectly coiffed and beautifully dressed, with their faces painted into near-identical features. Thankfully, they’ve each chosen a different color outfit, or Rey would probably start to worry that they were moving around when she wasn’t watching.

As the meal goes on, though, she starts to notice the subtle differences between them, and catalogs them with a scavenger’s awareness that knowledge is never wasted. The one in red apparently doesn’t like melon, sliding it to the side of her plate and glaring at the servants. The one in pale blue coughs into her hand, little tiny kitten-coughs, every few minutes. The one in very dark green keeps sending Finn what Rey suspects are supposed to be flirtatious glances, and the slight frown on her face grows deeper as the night wears on and Finn remains oblivious.

So. They aren’t homunculi, then. Rey was starting to worry.

As the meal ends, Finn stands, and the room falls silent, every eye turning towards him. He looks out over the room for a long, quiet moment, and then he says, “It is my pleasure to announce that, as I cannot decide between the many virtuous and well-bred women who wish to be my wife, I have prepared three challenges, to be announced three days hence. The woman who passes all three challenges, in full sight of my court and people, will be my chosen bride.”

He sits down again, and the room immediately dissolves into cacophony; Rey thinks every person except herself must be talking. The princesses are no exception.

“There will be a challenge of embroidery, of course,” sneers the princess in lavender, admiring her own sleeves, which are indeed embroidered very beautifully.

“Accounting,” parries the princess in cream silk. “He’ll want to know which of us won’t drain his treasury dry.” She gives a savage look to the princess in orange, who has more jewelry than any of the others.

“Calligraphy,” murmurs the princess in yellow. She is roundly ignored.

“Dancing,” sighs the princess in indigo. “He’ll want to know his bride is graceful.”

“Beauty,” sniffs the princess in pink. “What good is a bride without it?”

“Diplomacy,” suggests the princess in dove-grey, diffidently. The other eleven sneer at her in perfect unison. Rey winces in sympathy.

“Overseeing meal preparation,” says the princess in teal, distracting the others.

“Planning a military campaign,” says the princess in orange, and then they all slew around to stare at Rey, who stares back as blankly as she can, not willing to let them see her flinch.

“Well,” sniffs the princess in pale green, “I suppose we’ll learn which of us he favors by what the challenges are, won’t we?” She stands - Rey glances up at the high table to see that Finn has managed to escape during the commotion - and gives a perfunctory curtsey to the rest of the table. “Until tomorrow, then, I take my leave of you.”

“Until tomorrow, farewell,” the other princesses chorus. Rey comes in half a beat behind them, earning herself another few dirty looks.

The departure of the princess in pale green seems to have been a signal of some sort; scant moments later, the other princesses have also risen and vanished from the hall. Rey stands and looks around, starting to wonder where Poe is and whether she should return to her rooms without him - she’s not lost, of course, no one raised in the labyrinth of the lower city would get lost in a few simple corridors - when Grand Vizier Hux and his dog step out of the milling crowd in front of her.

Rey bows a little, because her leathers do not lend themselves to curtsying. The Grand Vizier bows rather more deeply, because Rey is - as far as he knows - a princess, and therefore outranks him.

“I must beg your pardon for failing to welcome you appropriately, Your Highness,” he says smoothly. “We were not made aware of your approach.”

That would be because _I_ didn’t know about it until this morning, Rey thinks but does not say. “It is the way of my people to be cautious of sending word ahead,” she replies instead. “There is no pardon needed, for you could not have known.” That sounds like a perfectly rational attitude for a warrior people to have, or at least Rey hopes it does.

“I must admit I do not recall sending word to Alderaan of our dear king’s search for a bride,” Grand Vizier Hux says quietly, the words nearly drowned out by the slowly dispersing court behind him.

“We have our sources,” Rey says carefully. “And my lady mother -” that is how Poe said she should refer to Queen Leia of Alderaan, though it grates on Rey to give that title to anyone but her own lost mama - “sent me with her blessings.” That’s vague enough, surely?

“I see,” the Grand Vizier says, while his dog snarls at his side. Rey doesn’t look down to meet the enormous hound’s eyes - she knows enough of dogs to know that meeting their eyes is a challenge, and she has no desire to challenge so ferocious an animal unless she must - but she wants, very badly, to retreat a few steps, out of lunging range. But the table is behind her, and in any case she is supposed to be the warrior princess of a warrior people - she is not going to retreat and give the lie to her supposed rank. And she’ll be _damned_ if she gives way before this supercilious asshole and his ill-trained dog. “Then I bid you welcome, if belatedly, to our fair country.”

“I thank you,” Rey says, and then, to her relief, sees Poe sliding out of the crowd. She bows again to the Grand Vizier, just a little, never taking her eyes off him. You never look away from men like him. She learned that _years_ ago. “My journey has wearied me,” she says.

“Of course,” the Grand Vizier replies. “Rest well, Your Highness.”

“I thank you,” Rey says again, and follows Poe out of the dining hall and down the corridors to the rooms she’s been given, collapsing on the couch as soon as the door closes behind her.

*

“ _Ugh_ ,” Rey says, half-muffled by the couch cushions. “What a dreadful man.”

“His servants spent the whole dinner questioning us,” Jess says, sounding very irritated. “Trying to trip us up, I think - get us to admit that we weren’t Alderaanian, or something like that.”

“Without any success,” Poe adds quickly. “We’re not _amateurs_.”

Rey giggles and sits up. “Good,” she says. “So. I’ve got three days to learn to be a princess - or at least enough to pretend. What’s my next lesson?”

“Dancing,” Jess says firmly, and shoves Poe towards Rey. Poe turns a stumble into a graceful drop onto one knee, and offers Rey his hand; Rey finds herself laughing again as she accepts the help up. “Even if it’s not one of the challenges, it’s probably going to come up at some point. Thankfully, since Alderaan is so far away, we can teach you _Alderaanian_ dances and no one here will be able to tell if you make some minor mistakes.”

“That seems sensible,” Rey agrees, and lets Poe position her carefully, one hand on his shoulder and the other held out. “Alright. Show me.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Poe replies, grinning. “So. Step backwards with your right foot…”

*

Rey spends most of the next three days immersed in her princess lessons, trying to cram dancing and swordplay and formal manners that normally would take _years_ to master into scant hours. It is exhausting work, and she falls into the obscenely comfortable bed each night so tired that she barely has time to appreciate the soft blankets before she is firmly asleep.

Somewhat to her surprise, her years on the street have given her the agility to be quite a good dancer, once she memorizes the steps, and the ruthlessness to be a _very_ good swordswoman, if a little prone to punching her opponents. The formal manners are harder, full of being polite to people you hate and the different ways to bow, but Rey studies as hard as she can.

The formal dinners with the court are tests, even if none of the other courtiers or princesses know it, and Rey passes every one. The other princesses might sneer at her for a barbarian, but they do not suspect she is anything but what she claims to be.

Finn does not come down from his high table to speak to any of them, but twice Rey looks up from her food to see him watching her, dark eyes alight with something like hope. Both times she meets his eyes and nods, just a little - just enough for him to see. Both times his lips quirk in the tiniest smile imaginable, just for a scant second, before he looks away again.

It’s the only communication they have, because he cannot appear to favor her above the other princesses. But it’s enough. He knows it’s her, and she knows _he_ knows, and together they will foil the Grand Vizier’s plans if it’s the last thing Rey does.

The morning of the fourth day, Rey joins the other twelve princesses and pretty much every courtier in the vast throne room. There are heralds stationed on the balconies, to call Finn’s words to the crowds Rey can hear outside the palace.

“I have decided,” Finn says, as the courtiers fall silent in anticipation, “to set three challenges for the princesses who wish to become my wife and queen. The first will be a challenge of poise, for a queen must be graceful; the second of discernment, for a queen must be wise; and the third of knowledge, for the woman who would marry me must know me as more than a king.”

Rey gulps. She is getting quite good at dancing, Poe and Jess claim, but she’s still only had three days of training - less, since she has spent time learning other things as well. But Finn _knows_ she was a scavenger not even a week ago, knows she was not trained to dance and embroider and insult people with soft words and bright smiles. He knows she’s here to save him. He wouldn’t choose a challenge she would _fail_.

“Today, I will welcome the company of my guests, each at her appointed hour, that we may learn to know each other a little,” Finn says. The princesses break into excited muttering. “Tomorrow the challenge of grace will commence.”

*

Rey’s “appointed hour,” as the last princess to arrive, is apparently not until the hour before the court’s dinner. She spends the day working on dancing and swordplay, which work as very effective distractions. At last, though, she is dressed in what is apparently Alderaanian formal wear - it involves less leather and more elaborate hairstyle than she expects - and following the servant through the halls to the king’s own apartments, with Poe and Jess behind her as her bodyguards.

Finn is waiting for her on a balcony that looks out over the city, and Rey leaves Poe and Jess with the little cluster of servants which are apparently necessary to a king’s dignity and goes to stand beside him, remembering only at the last minute to bow. Finn bows back, a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth.

“Princess Rey,” he says quietly.

“King Finn,” she replies, just as softly.

There’s a long pause while he just _looks_ at her, eyes full of astonished wonder. At last he says, quietly, “ _How?_ ”

Rey grins. “I found a genie,” she says, so quietly Finn has to lean closer to hear. “I set him free, and he asked me my heart’s desire. And I asked that you should have a princess worth your time.”

“And so he brought me _you_ ,” Finn says, smiling down at her so happily it makes her breath catch. “What a wise genie, indeed.”

“I don’t know about _that_ ,” Rey says, shrugging. “I don’t know how to be a princess. I mean, I’m learning, but -”

“You know how to be kind, and how to be ruthless, and how to speak the truth to power,” Finn says quietly. “You are compassionate, and clever, and stubborn, and - well - very beautiful. I think you are already more suited to be queen than any of the elegant creatures who think they are your competition. The challenges will be fair - they must be - but they are meant for you.”

Rey grins back up at him. “Then I’ll win them all,” she promises, “and then when I am queen beside you, we can figure out what to do with Hux.”

“Yes,” Finn agrees, soft but fierce. “With you beside me - and once I’ve reached my majority - yes.”

Rey nods, then glances over at the little knot of servants, who are clearly trying not to _look_ like they’re gawking, and takes a tiny step backwards. “So. What did you talk about with the other princesses?”

“Half of them tried to get the details of the challenges out of me, and the other half wanted to discuss the wedding,” Finn says, grimacing a little. “Which made for distressing conversations all round.”

Rey winces. “Well, I won’t ask about either, then,” she says, and steps away to lean against the balcony, looking out over the sprawling city. Finn joins her, standing just far enough away for what Rey assumes is propriety. “What do you _want_ to talk about?”

“Reforms,” Finn says promptly. “I know what I _want_ to do, but I don’t know if it will have the effect I want it to have, because I haven’t the firsthand experience of my people that you do.”

“Alright,” Rey agrees, nodding. “You tell me what you’ve got planned, and I’ll tell you why it won’t work.”

Finn snorts with badly-concealed laughter. “That, right there, is why I need you,” he says, and then launches into a quiet but passionate list of reforms. Rey listens closely, interjecting comments now and again, and she’s fairly sure they would have spent the entire night there except that as the great bell-tower chimes the hour one of the hovering servants coughs politely and Finn startles.

“That is our hour, then,” he says mournfully. “I will not be able to see you again until after the challenges, I’m afraid.”

“I guessed as much,” Rey says, shrugging, and bows to him. “Until then, my king.”

“Until then, my princess,” Finn replies, bowing in return, and Rey turns away and follows Jess out of his rooms, Poe at her back.

Dinner would be interminable, listening to the other twelve princesses gossip about their upcoming weddings or the challenges to come - or what they imagine those challenges to be - but Rey has the memory of Finn’s smile and the way he says her name, and ignores her tablemates with ease.

*

The challenge of grace is, in fact, being held in a ballroom, Rey learns the next morning, after a breakfast that’s mostly fruit because she can’t bear to eat anything heavier. Nerves. She hasn’t been this nervous in _years_ \- but then, on the streets, she always knew that any problem that arose could probably be either beaten up or run away from, and she can neither assault nor flee this challenge. Not if she wants to win.

And oh, she wants to win. Neither she nor Finn has said anything about love, but - if this isn’t love, this warm fizzing in her chest, this longing for Finn’s company, this sweet delight every time she makes him smile, then Rey’s not sure what is.

While the challenge _is_ in the ballroom - mostly, Rey decides, because the ballroom has balconies for all the spectators - it is not a dancing challenge. Instead, what is laid out in front of the thirteen princesses is - the only description Rey can think of is “obstacle course.” There are walls to climb and thin baulks of timber to cross and a section of tiles that will almost certainly slide underfoot, nearly identical to those on some of the roofs in the better sections of the city.

The other princesses are staring at the challenge with dismay written clearly across their faces. “We’re to cross _that_?” demands the one in pink.

“While being _graceful_?” adds the one in grey. Rey is _endlessly_ grateful that they all have something of a signature color, because otherwise she _would_ mix them up. Poor Finn!

“It’s not...impossible…” says the one in indigo, thoughtfully. “Not simple, no, but not impossible.” Rey has a moment of surprised respect for the other woman.

Finn steps forward. He is standing on the other side of the obstacle course - Rey takes a moment to grin to herself at the symbolism - dressed very formally indeed, all in a dark blue silk that looks absolutely stunning and probably cost a year’s wages for a reasonably prosperous merchant. “Each of you,” he says, and the princesses fall silent, “will attempt to cross the challenge as gracefully as possible, for a queen must be graceful in every circumstance. Should you reach me without falling, you will have passed the challenge. Should you fall, you will have failed. I and my court will judge among those who succeed, as to which was most graceful in the attempt.” He steps backwards, leaving a clear space for them to land after the last bit of sliding tile, and gestures elegantly to the princess in yellow. “Each shall attempt the challenge in the same order as you came to speak with me yesterday.”

The princess in yellow takes a deep breath and steps forward. She makes it four steps along the initial baulk of wood, which has an uneven surface but roughly the same width the whole way along, before she trips over a knot in the wood and falls ungracefully onto the stone floor, landing in a little heap and bursting immediately into tears. Rey winces. A handful of servants come scrambling out to bundle the princess in yellow up and carry her away.

The princess in pale blue makes it a little farther, but her coughing knocks her over onto the sliding tiles. Rey winces again. The princess in lavender totters and squeaks but makes it to the other side with a lunge and slides panting to the floor in triumph. The princess in pink takes three steps and then turns around and marches out of the ballroom in high dudgeon. The princess in teal crosses slowly, and with a frown of immense concentration marring her perfect facepaint, but she manages it. The princess in red manages to fall so spectacularly that she has to be carried off the course - Rey winces yet again in sympathy. None of these women could have survived the streets for more than a few minutes.

The princess in pale green, having watched every attempt with narrowed eyes, manages the best time thus far, planting her feet carefully and with great accuracy. The princess in indigo takes longer but is definitely more graceful about it - which is, after all, the point - even managing to sweep Finn an elegant curtsey as she steps off the final tile. The princess in grey wavers several times but manages to make it across. The princess in cream swears very quietly with every step and glares at Finn instead of curtsying when she reaches the end. The princess in orange practically _marches_ across, swaying several times and only catching herself by virtue, so far as Rey can tell, of sheer stubbornness. The princess in deep green twists her ankle on the sliding tiles and swoons.

And then it is Rey’s turn, and she bows to Finn across the course and steps onto the first baulk of wood as lightly as a feather. This course is _nothing_ compared to the roofs and half-destroyed buildings she has made her home for so many years. She half-dances down the baulk of timber, incorporating one of the dance steps Poe has taught her as she steps lightly off of it, and vaults over the low wall without laying a hand upon it. There is a smattering of surprised applause from the crowded balconies.

The sliding tiles are not terribly difficult; Rey crosses them in a few quick, graceful steps, and hops lightly onto the next timber, from there to the next walltop, and really, this is far easier than her normal day’s travel; she hops down from the walltop with a little smile on her face and runs lightly over the last batch of sliding tiles, landing neatly in front of Finn and bowing deeply, not even a little bit out of breath.

The crowds on the balconies roar with approval, and Finn bows back to her. The other successful princesses gather around, some of them giving Rey truly vicious glares, and Finn bows to all of them, too.

“You have passed my first challenge, your Highnesses,” he says calmly. “Tomorrow, then, will be the challenge of discernment.” He bows again, and they all curtsey - or bow, in Rey’s case - and then he is gone in a swirl of blue silk. Rey shrugs and heads for a different exit, while behind her the other seven successful princesses break into furious whispering.

One down. Two more to go.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for the canon-typical violence in this one, guys.

“So what do djinni _do_ when they’re not trapped in bottles or helping young scavengers become queens?” Rey asks, flopping back onto a cushion in exhaustion. Jess puts up her own sword, grinning.

“Anything we like,” Poe says cheerfully. “Phenomenal cosmic powers pretty much mean we can go anywhere and do anything - though admittedly being able to do _anything_ sometimes means we get a bit bored. Those of us that get bottled are usually taking naps at the time.” He shrugs. “Me, I like to fly. There’s nothing quite like it: being up there above everything, swooping along on the high winds, playing tag with the birds, sculpting the clouds into unusual shapes...sometimes I don’t come down for days.”

Rey sighs dreamily. “That sounds _wonderful_ ,” she says. “I used to dream about flying, when I was very little - floating off the rooftop and flying away to somewhere _good_.”

Poe looks thoughtful. “I could - I could bring you up,” he suggests. “It’s dark out, nobody will see, and I can _certainly_ keep you from falling. Would you like that?”

“Would you?” Rey gasps, leaping to her feet. “That would be - that would be _marvelous_.”

“Sure,” Poe says, and reaches out to take her hand, leading her out onto the balcony and then, to Rey’s astonished delight, rising into the air. It doesn’t _feel_ like they’re doing anything - there’s no sense that Rey is being pulled up by his hand in hers - but the palace drops away below them, the entire city becoming smaller and smaller until at last it is a little island of lights no different in appearance from the stars above. Rey gazes around in wonder and delight.

“Come on, let’s go make the clouds look like elephants,” Poe says cheerfully, and Rey laughs aloud and spreads her arms, glorying in the feeling of the wind bearing them along, the night air cool against her skin.

She’s not sure quite how long they spend up among the clouds, but she sleeps like a stone when she gets back to her room, and when she wakes she’s still smiling with the glory of the night.

*

The next morning, the attentive servants lead the remaining princesses to the ballroom once again. According to Muran, who has apparently been making friends among the housekeeping staff, the five princesses who failed to pass the obstacle course have all left in high dudgeon already; Rey is pretty sure that’s a good thing. The fewer competitors, the better, after all.

There are eight tables set up in the ballroom, each with a heap of objects in the middle. Rey pauses just inside the doorway, blinking in confusion; but all the other princesses are doing the same, so she doesn’t feel too out of place.

“Please choose a table - they are all quite identical,” Finn says, smiling at them. He is wearing red today, a deep shade that glows like rubies, and Rey admires him for a moment before she heads for the farthest table. The pile of objects turns out to be a heap of coins and jewelry, all gleaming like gold.

“Each table,” Finn says, raising his voice, “holds objects which ought, by rights, be made of gold. Yet some are made, instead, of brass or copper or even fool’s gold, plated or otherwise concealed. Your task, Highnesses, is to separate the gold from the dross; for a true queen must know the worth of everyone and everything around her.” He glances at each of them, then steps backwards, giving the line of princesses a little bow. “You have until the noon bells. You may begin.”

Rey starts to smile. She can’t help it: if there was ever a test she was truly suited for, it is this one. No one survives long on the streets without learning _exactly_ how to tell true metal from dross, and Rey, who collected scrap metal for a _living_ , is even better than most. She starts sorting through the heap of jewelry and coins, setting aside a particularly badly-done brass-and-glass piece with a sniff of contempt. The others aren’t _quite_ as obvious, but they’re not difficult to figure out, either, with a bit of concentration and her hard-won knowledge - and, at one point, a bowl of water brought to her by a slightly confused servant - and when she looks up an hour later, it’s with the firm knowledge that the tiny heap remaining in front of her is gold and nothing else.

She nods at Finn, who nods back and brings over a tall, dark woman who leans over the table and examines Rey’s choices carefully, then straightens with a firm nod. “The Princess Rey of Alderaan has chosen correctly,” she declares loudly. The crowds on the balconies cheer.

Rey steps back and waits, watching the other princesses. None of them look happy, but the ones in cream and teal and pale green are doing fairly well, if Rey is any judge. Certainly their frowns are more concentration than actual anger. The one in orange is swearing, though, and the ones in indigo and lavender appear to have given up entirely, while the one in grey is just picking up each piece and peering at it, then putting it down again, as though just _looking_ will tell her everything she needs to know.

By the time the noon bells ring, only the three princesses in cream and teal and pale green have achieved even _partial_ success. The tall judge declares that each of them has found _most_ of the golden items on their tables, though not all; and the princess in pale green has selected a plated item by mistake.

The three successful princesses glare at Rey. The other five stomp away, looking _very_ put out. And Rey retreats gratefully to her rooms, where Iolo has a meal waiting for her. Two challenges down. Only one to go.

*

“Have _you_ got any ideas about what Finn should do about Hux?” Rey asks her djinni over dinner in her suite. She’s just as glad there’s no formal dinner tonight - eating beside the remaining princesses, who would doubtless have been even less pleasant than formerly, would not have been fun.

“He can’t just have the bastard exiled?” Temmin asks lazily.

“Apparently Hux knows where all the bodies are buried,” Rey says, shrugging. “Finn said if he tried to exile or execute Hux, there’d probably be a civil war.”

“Ick,” Nien opines. “Those are always bad news.”

“So Finn would need some sort of solid proof that Hux was working against him before he could get rid of him,” Jess says thoughtfully. “Preferably something really impressive and public, so no one could claim he’d framed Hux for his own ends.”

“Hmmm,” says Poe. “I might have _something_ like an idea.” He plucks a battered, familiar lamp out of the air. Rey stares.

“Why do you still _have_ that?”

“To remind me not to be that stupid twice,” Poe says, shrugging. “So here’s my thought. Next time the servants come in, have that in front of you, and then hide it, clumsily, looking worried that they’ve seen. If they’re in Hux’s pay - which, frankly, some of them sure as hell _ought_ to be -”

“They are,” Muran puts in. “All but two, actually.”

“Good, right. So they’ll report to Hux that you have something to hide: a battered old lamp that no self-respecting princess would keep around. If I’m right, he’ll make the connection immediately.”

“And then what?” Rey asks curiously.

“Well, if he’s actually as much of a slimeball as Finn thinks he is, the obvious thing to do would be to steal the lamp and take control of the genie,” Poe says, cheerfully. “Hard for a greedy man to turn down the chance for phenomenal cosmic powers at his beck and call, after all. And if I play along for a little while, well, we might be able to get your young king exactly the sort of solid proof he needs.”

Rey blinks. “You’d do that? For me?”

“For the woman who freed me without thought of profit or reward?” Poe asks, quite seriously. “I would remake the world for you, if that was what you wanted. But since what you want is a happy ending with your sweet young king, well, I shall see to it that you get it. My word of honor on it.”

“Thank you,” Rey says softly, trying to put every ounce of her gratitude into the words

“It is my pleasure,” Poe replies, just as quietly.

*

The next day, Rey and the other three princesses are again escorted to the ballroom. Finn is waiting behind a long table laid with all sorts of lovely foods. Rey has had breakfast already, but she can’t help licking her lips a little. She’s spent too many days hungry to be immune to the siren call of so much deliciousness. And then there’s Finn, too, wearing deep royal purple today, looking quite as delectable as the food in front of him.

“For your final challenge,” Finn proclaims, “you must choose from this table my favorite food, to prove you know me as a man as well as a king. To ensure that I could not cheat and aid one of you, before we spoke three days ago I wrote the true answer upon a sealed parchment and entrusted it to my loyal Treasurer -” the tall woman beside him, the same one who judged the gold challenge, bows deeply - “and she will proclaim the true winner.” He glances up at the crowds on the balconies. “You have one hour to make your selections, and at the end of the hour Treasurer Zo will proclaim the winner. You may begin.”

Rey steps forward to survey the offerings. It is quite a spread, even by the standards of the royal table: roast lamb and suckling pig and glazed duck, melons and berries and apples and cream to dip them in, pastries of every type both sweet and savory, baked fish and greens, bread still warm from the ovens. She wanders up and down the table, dodging the other princesses, and then at last she sees it, nestled between a dish of roast chicken and a platter of spiced vegetables: Finn’s favorite food.

She smiles. But she does not stop, does not reach out to touch it, does not indicate her choice in any way. She will not give her competitors any sign that she has found the answer. And they are watching her, she knows, especially the princess in pale green. So she keeps pacing, looking carefully at everything on the table and making careful mental notes as to which things she really wants to try, one of these days, though some of them she has eaten already - the way the king and his court eat is honestly a revelation to a girl from the streets.

At last the bells ring the hour, and Rey stops her incessant pacing and turns to look at Finn, who nods to them all.

“In the order you arrived, then,” he says gently.

The princess in teal says, “Your favorite food is roasted duck, Your Majesty.”

“Alas, it is not,” Finn replies, and the tall woman - Treasurer Zo, Rey remembers, and recites the name to herself a few times so she will not forget - shakes her head. The princess in teal stamps her foot in anger, but steps back.

“Your favorite food is apples in pastry,” the princess in pale green guesses. Again, Finn and Treasurer Zo shake their heads. The princess in pale green puts her nose in the air and sniffs in derision.

“Your favorite food is melon,” the princess in cream says firmly. Finn and Treasurer Zo shake their heads in perfect unison. The princess in cream sighs.

Rey steps forward and says, clearly, “Your favorite food is candied ginger, my king.”

Treasurer Zo startles, and then blinks down at the parchment in her hand. Finn smiles broadly. “Yes,” he says, and holds out a hand as Treasurer Zo begins to nod vigorously. Rey steps around the table heaped with good things and puts her hand in Finn’s. He raises their clasped hands, turning to look up at the crowds filling the balconies.

“My people!” he cries, loud enough to fill even that enormous room. “I give you Princess Rey of Alderaan, my chosen wife and queen-to-be!”

The cheers are deafening, but Rey stands there with her hand held tight in Finn’s and smiles so hard it hurts her cheeks, because she has won - _he_ has won - and they will be together all their lives.

*

By the time Rey can finally leave the ballroom to go and change for the formal dinner that night, all her things have apparently been moved to the _new_ suite of rooms which will be hers as Finn’s betrothed. Poe winks broadly at her as he tells her so, and Rey, after a moment’s thought, realizes that Poe must mean that the servants who moved her things were Hux’s, and one of them - or maybe even the Vizier himself - has found the ill-concealed lamp and made off with it.

If it really _was_ a djinn’s lamp, Rey would be immensely worried, but as it is she just smiles.

“So what do I have that’s appropriate to wear to this dinner?” she asks once the door to her new rooms closes behind her. They’re lovely rooms, of course - she’ll explore them properly later - but she’s looking forward to leaving them, to moving into _Finn’s_ rooms at last. But that won’t be till after the wedding, and Rey has no idea how long a royal wedding takes to arrange.

“Purple, to match your young king,” Jess says firmly. “And Kare and I are going to do something elaborate with your hair.” She grins. “You have proven yourself graceful, discerning, and wise - now we will make you elegant as well.”

“That should be...interesting,” Rey says, but she submits to the djinni’s hands, and emerges in time for dinner in a dress of purple silk so soft and lovely she can only barely stop running her hands over it, with her hair swept up in an elegant crown of braids held in place by amethyst-hilted stilettos. “For our dangerous princess,” Kare grins as she puts them in. “No swords at this dinner, but you should have _some_ sort of weapon.”

“Thank you,” Rey says, quite sincerely. She has been feeling rather naked without her daggers easy to hand. Not that she really _expected_ any of the other princesses to try to stab her - it seems impolite, and they do set such store by propriety - but still.

When she gets to the dining hall, she sees, to her mingled pleasure and dismay, that the table for the princesses has been removed - the last three must have left - and there is a seat at Finn’s right hand, waiting empty for her. She crosses the room and bows to Finn, who bows back, and then they seat themselves at the same time, and all around the room the rest of the court sits down as well.

“My king,” Rey says quietly, under the noise of conversation and the clink of utensils.

“My queen-to-be,” Finn replies, just as softly, a smile curving his lips. “Victory is yours.”

“Yes,” Rey agrees, smiling back. “No regrets? You wouldn’t have preferred - oh - the princess in dark green?”

Finn winces. “No,” he says, sounding a little strangled. “No, I would not have preferred her.” Then his smile comes back. “I will _always_ prefer you.”

Rey feels warm all through, and knows her cheeks have gone pink. She takes a quick sip of lemon water to give herself a chance to recover.

“And you?” Finn checks. “You’re sure you wouldn’t prefer to go find some other kingdom, some other king?”

“Never,” Rey says firmly.

They are smiling at each other in what Rey suspects is a rather silly manner when the noise of the court abruptly diminishes. Rey turns to see Grand Vizier Hux striding up between the tables, his black dog at his side, a sneer upon his face and his cloak snapping behind him in the wind of his passage; and around him, the court falls silent, in surprise and sudden fear. This is not the approach of a Vizier to his king, not with the way a small horde of guards files into the dining hall behind him, spreading out to line the walls, weapons ready to their hand. Rey glances down at the far end of the hall to see her djinni looking around with speculative expressions. With luck, eleven djinni will be enough to keep anything from going _too_ badly wrong.

Hux stops in front of the royal table, glaring up at Finn and Rey. “This _farce_ ,” he snarls, “has gone on quite long enough.”

“I beg your pardon?” Finn asks, raising one eyebrow. He’s tense, though, hand clenching beneath the cover of the table, and Rey realizes that he, too, is unarmed - not even a dagger by his side. She can’t reach for her hair now, not with Hux’s eyes burning into both of them, but as soon as she can, well, she has more than one stiletto. Finn can have one.

“You and your _reforms_ ,” Hux sneers, “must be stopped. And at last,” he pulls a battered lamp out of his cloak and brandishes it, “I have the power to do so!”

Finn blinks at him in manifest confusion. “A...lamp?”

“A djinn,” Hux snaps, and lowers his burning gaze long enough to rub the lamp against his sleeve. Rey takes the golden opportunity to pluck two stilettos from her hair, pressing the hilt of one into Finn’s hand.

Poe appears before the royal table, dressed much as he was the day Rey first summoned him, in loose orange pants and brass cuffs around his wrists. Rey’s breath catches in her throat - did Hux manage to _re-bottle_ him? But Jess and the other djinni don’t look distressed as they carefully take up positions around the room.

“I am the slave of the lamp,” Poe intones, voice sounding deeper and more resonant than Rey has ever heard it before - more like she would have _imagined_ a djinn’s voice would sound. “What is your will?”

“I would be king of this land,” Hux snaps. “I command that you shall make it so.”

“Indeed,” Poe says, raising his hand menacingly - Finn goes very still beside Rey, his knuckles white on the stiletto’s hilt - “I shall not.”

And the cuffs fall from his wrists to land with resonating clangs upon the flagstone floor.

Hux’s jaw drops. “ _What_?”

Finn looks just as flabbergasted, Rey sees when she dares a quick glance at him.

Poe begins, impossibly, to grow, looming taller and taller until his head brushes the ceiling of the immense hall. All around the room, the other djinni do the same, looming above the guards and the courtiers with grim expressions on their enormous faces. Several people scream; others faint.

“King Finn and his queen-to-be are under my protection,” Poe thunders. “Tremble, usurper, for I am your doom!”

Hux, Rey notes with some amazement, does not cower, as so many of his guards are doing, nor scream or faint, as so many courtiers are. Instead, he looks down at the great black dog at his side and gestures sharply. “Kylo,” he snaps. “ _Kill_.”

The dog, to Rey’s blank astonishment and immense dismay, bursts into flames, and as it does so it grows from its already prodigious size to become nearly as large as the royal table. It growls, low and menacing, and the sound reverberates through the stone beneath Rey’s feet.

Rey has not stayed alive so long by freezing at the sight of danger. Finn is a trained warrior, as a king must be, and will not quail before any threat. Their hands come up at the same time, in unplanned unison, and two amethyst-hilted stilettos go hissing across the royal table towards the hellhound.

Rey’s stiletto takes the hellhound in the eye, Finn’s in the throat. Its growl turns to a coughing whine of startled pain, and then Poe claps his hands, sharply, the sound ringing through the hall like thunder.

Hux and his hellhound vanish in a puff of smoke. Poe chuckles, the sound surprisingly vicious. “Let us see how _he_ likes being trapped in a lamp,” he says, and bends, dwindling again to merely human dimensions as he does, to pick up the lamp and place it on the table in front of Finn and Rey.

“Is he a djinn now?” Finn asks, frowning.

“No,” Poe says, shaking his head firmly. “Just confined. I thought this safer than a prison cell.”

“Indeed,” Finn says, eyeing the lamp dubiously. “Can you put that somewhere no one can get to it, please?”

Poe claps his hands again, the sound much quieter now, and the lamp vanishes. Rey and Finn blink at the empty space for a moment, and then Finn stands.

“My people,” he says, and the hall falls silent, courtiers and guards alike looking up at him with wide eyes. Rey can see hope and awe and growing respect on their faces: a king who can command djinni, who can take down a hellhound and a traitor, is a king worth following, after all. One by one at first, then by the handfuls, the guards begin to drop to their knees. The courtiers, too, kneel, first the ones closest to the royal table, then the ones behind them, in a wave of motion, until at last the only people standing in the vast hall are Finn and the djinni. Rey takes a deep breath and stands up beside Finn, shoulder to shoulder, looking out over the people who will someday soon be hers, as well.

“I will not let this traitor mar a day which should be joyful,” Finn says solemnly. “Today I have chosen my wife, and my queen-to-be has brought me the aid of those who have removed a canker from the very heart of my court.” He smiles. “I think that perhaps this final challenge proves the truth of the three before: truly is Rey a queen fit to share my throne.” There’s a murmur of approval from the courtiers. “Therefore let us rejoice,” Finn declares, “that I have lost a traitor and gained in his stead a queen!”

There’s a roar of approval, and Finn and Rey take their seats again. The djinni shrink again to their human sizes and usher the false guards out of the hall - Rey’s not _quite_ sure where they’re going, but “out” is a good start - and the feast resumes again. Finn looks across the royal table at Poe, and beckons.

“Join us, my friend,” he says. A servant hurries forward with an extra chair, and Poe circles the table to take it, settling elegantly at Finn’s left hand. “Without you, we would be quite dead, I suspect. What reward can I give you to show my gratitude?”

“No reward is necessary,” Poe says immediately. “What I did, I did because your queen gave me a gift beyond price, and if I gave her the world on a string it would not be repayment enough.”

“I did not free you for a reward,” Rey points out.

“Which is exactly why I gave you one,” Poe retorts. “Now. Since you have your young king,” he smiles at Finn, “and yon clever traitor is gone - would you like me to leave, as well? I know mortal folk often find us...distressing after a while.”

Rey gulps. “No,” she says quietly. “If you wanted to stay - I like your company.”

“Anyone Rey likes is a friend of mine,” Finn says firmly. “And I would be glad of your counsel, too - surely you have seen more than the world than I.”

“Then I’ll stay,” Poe says, smiling. “Such mortals as the two of you are rare indeed.” He shrugs. “Jess and the others will return to our own country soon enough, since they are only here as a favor to me, I’m afraid, but so long as you like my company, I shall be glad to remain.”

“Good,” Rey says, nodding firmly.

“Very good,” Finn agrees, and takes her hand beneath the table’s edge.

*

Rey’s pretty sure the wedding is magnificent - certainly the outfit Jess and Kare produced for her is a vision of silk and lace and pearls - but she only has eyes for Finn, resplendent in royal purple again as he waits for her. She makes her vows as loudly and clearly as she can, and when she and Finn appear on the balcony above the main square of the city, the roar of the crowd below staggers her. Finn’s fingers are warm around hers, though, and she steps to the edge of the balcony beside him and raises her free hand to the people of the city - the people who are _hers_ now, hers and Finn’s to protect and guide and rule.

And when they turn away, finally, to greet their court, there is Poe waiting, leaning against the wall and watching the scene with gleaming eyes. Rey smiles at him and wins a smile back. Her friend and her king, and the whole world spread out before her -

She’s come a long way from the streets, she thinks, and steps down into the great hall at Finn’s side, ready for her happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> This will update Wednesday and Friday.
> 
> I'm imaginarygolux on tumblr - drop on by!


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